The Exercise and Acceptance of Power in an Industrial Channel Dyad

ABSTRACT

Purpose: Power is an adaptive process in which power exercised by one firm could be less than, equal to, or greater than that accepted by another over the course of different periods. This study incorporates previous research on power asymmetry to examine the process of power exercise and acceptance over three stages: power exploration, power balance and power idleness.

Design/methodology/approach: Semistructured interviews were conducted with 4 powerful suppliers (the source firms) and their distributors (the target firms) in different industries.

Findings: The exercise and acceptance of power are influenced by expected rewards and expected costs in the power exploration stage and are impacted by dependence and trust in the power idleness stage; in the stage of power balance, power exercise and acceptance will not be altered. Under power shortage, the source firm will attempt to use less power and/or to enhance the levels of power accepted by the target; under power surplus, the source firm will transform the surplus into company performance and/or personal interests.

Research limitations/implications: The findings deepen our understanding of how power is exercised and accepted in a channel dyad over time, and of how firms behave in dealing with power shortage and power surplus.

Practical implications: The findings also provide some guidance for practitioners, so that they may apply power more appropriately based on different power stages in marketing channels.

Originality/value: This study extends our knowledge on power evolution over three stages from both a power holder and an acceptor viewpoint.     

Born globals,the choice of globalization strategy,and the market's perception of performance

This paper analyzes which characteristics of born global firms determine their choice for international entry mode. Using a logistic regression analysis, we study 124 newly public firms in the United States that undertake 261 international joint ventures or international acquisitions within the first 6 years of their founding. We find that the market responds positively to announcements of international expansions by born global firms, and that larger, more profitable, and more liquid firms have a higher propensity to engage in joint ventures rather than acquisitions. We also find that the market favors firms that announce joint ventures, rewarding them with significantly positive abnormal returns. Furthermore, while we find that cultural similarity affects mode choice, it does not affect the market's reaction to the announcements.     

Niche Firms and the Role of Commitment: An Exploratory Study of Seafood Exporters

The purpose of this research article is to explore the relationships and challenges that export-oriented niche firms experience in terms of commitment to customer firms. The research has been conducted through case methodology, including in-depth interviews with key informants in five firms.

The findings show that these case firms display strong niche firms' characteristics and high affective commitment to their major customers. The relationships are few, close, and long-term. Potential challenges resulting from customer commitment are personal friendships that could hamper sound business decisions, difficulties with terminating long-lasting personal relationships in favor of others, and opportunistic behavior. Further reported challenges are vulnerability due to specific production investments or product adaptation combined with a vulnerable production, challenging price negotiations, and potential conflicts of commitment down the marketing channel.     

Deterrence or Conflict Spiral Effect? Exercise of Coercive Power in Marketing Channels: Evidence from China

Purpose: The article aims to test the appropriateness of deterrence and conflict spiral models in marketing channels. Both models have been alternatively used as bases to explain firms’ power-related behaviors in marketing channels. However, the issue of the appropriateness of such an application in various contexts has not yet been addressed.

Methodology/approach: The authors develop the hypotheses based on deterrence theory and their alternatives based on conflict spiral theory. They gather data from 204 sales representatives of suppliers in China and use linear regression analysis to test their hypotheses versus alternatives.

Empirical findings: The data analysis offers supportive evidence for the deterrence logic but with unexpected results. By elaborating on the empirical results, the original assumption of deterrence theory, and the nature of interfirm relationship in marketing channels, the authors modify the deterrence model for research on power related-behaviors in the given context. The analysis implies a possible explanation for inconsistent findings in the literature regarding exercises of coercive power.

Originality/value/contribution: This article proposes a revised deterrence model that can interpret the empirical results with a consistent logic and better predict power-related behaviors in marketing channels.

Research limitations/implications: The research results may lack generalizability with respect to channel type and culture. It does not directly test the cognitive mechanisms that mediate the impact of power on its exercise. Researchers are encouraged to directly test the mediating constructs in other channels or countries.

Practical implications: The article includes some insights and implications for managers in understanding power structure and implementing influence strategies in business-to-business marketing.     

Is small business better than big business for marketing managers?

This survey of marketing managers compares small business firms with large ones in relation to explicit and implicit ethics institutionalization, quality of work life (QWL), job satisfaction, esprit de corps, and organizational commitment. The results reveal that large firms tend to have a higher degree of explicit ethics institutionalization than smaller firms but not in relation to implicit ethics institutionalization. The results also reveal that marketing managers in small firms report higher levels of job satisfaction, esprit de corps, and organizational commitment compared to marketing managers in large firms. The study findings also show that marketing managers in small firms report higher levels of overall QWL, particularly higher-order QWL than managers in large firms.     

Market valuation of marketing alliances in East Asia: Korean evidence

This paper investigates firm value created by non-equity marketing alliance announcements of Korean listed firms in terms of stock price reactions to the announcements. We find evidence that on the Korean stock market, the announcements of marketing alliances produce significant positive abnormal returns, which reflect an increase in firm value, around the announcement date. This suggests that firm managers need to seek for various marketing alliances not only for an effective competition in competitive business environments but also for enhancement in shareholder wealth. The increase in firm value has inverse relationship with firm's size and growth opportunity. In particular, marketing alliances with firms based in G7-countries create greater firm value than ones with firms based in the home country. Our study provides investors, firm managers, and academics with valuable implications of an importance of marketing alliances for valuation of firms in other Asian countries as well as in Korea.     

The Impact of Perceived Organizational Support on Self-Directed Learning in Sales Training

Perceived organizational support has a positive influence on the willingness of salespeople to use self-directed learning (SDL) projects. These SDL projects can be tailored to fit a salesperson's distinct learning needs, to increase performance, and to achieve the overarching goals of collaborative members of a marketing channel. Hence, it is beneficial for channel members to create a supportive learning culture that promotes the use of SDL projects by salespeople. Salespeople within the insurance industry play an essential role inside their marketing channel. Data collected from 392 insurance salespeople in over 170 firms is used to empirically test how perceived organizational support influences the use of two types of SDL projects. Salespeople encouraged to use elective SDL projects reported higher levels of performance than those required to use compulsory SDL projects.     

The power of international marketing functions: antecedents and consequences

Purpose: This paper addresses intra-organizational power of international marketing (IM) functions. While IM functions play an important role in firms that operate in continuously changing international environments, their power has been under-explored. Importantly, IM managers need to understand their function’s power and its implications for business performance.

Methodology/approach: Drawing on resource-dependency and interaction theories, we contend that IM functions’ power is affected by the power of non-marketing functions and coordination and conflicts with them. Additionally, IM functions’ power should affect international performance. However, contingency factors may change this effect. The empirical study uses data from senior managers of B-to-B international firms. The model is tested using multiple regression analysis and extensive post-hoc tests.

Findings: While IM functions are powerful, their power is enhanced by coordination with other functions and is reduced by the power held by non-marketing functions. Surprisingly, conflicts with other functions increase IM functions’ power. Finally, IM functions’ power enhances international performance but its effect is weakened by intra-IM conflicts and differs across hi- and low-tech firms.

Research implications: This study provides insights about drivers and outcomes of IM functions’ power based on their relationships with non-marketing functions. Performance consequences of IM power are dependent on contingencies. The study extends knowledge on the under-researched phenomena of marketing power in a B-to-B international context.

Practical implications: IM managers should manage sources of relative functional power and unique intra-firm interactions to sustain or promote their power and thus benefit their firms’ international performance. Practitioners recognize mechanisms to control IMs’ power.

Originality/value/contribution: The study is the first to focus on the interactions of IM functions with non-marketing functions in B-to-B firms and thus complements prior research on IM, general marketing, and non-marketing functions.     

Origin matters: Institutional imprinting and family firm innovation in China

During the early 1990s, a swathe of small state-owned enterprises (SOEs) was privatized as family businesses in China. This paper examines whether and how the origin (i.e., restructured vs. entrepreneurial) of family firms affects corporate innovation. Using the data of Chinese family firms from 2009 to 2018, we find that restructured family firms generate fewer patents generally than entrepreneurial family firms, but create more high-quality patents than their entrepreneurial counterparts. This effect is more pronounced for those family firms which had formerly been SOEs for a more extended period, without generational succession, and previously controlled by governments entirely. Further mechanism tests show that restructured family firms have a higher likelihood of hiring professional managers, are subject to less intervention from family members, and have fewer informal hierarchies, providing direct evidence for the institutional imprinting channel. Our findings suggest that the institutional imprint underlying the origin of family firms can be critical to their innovation decisions.     

Service Orientation and Small Business Marketing

ABSTRACT

In an environment of ever increasing competition, small businesses are beginning to recognize that adopting a strong service orientation in their marketing efforts not only gives them a differential advantage, but is also fast becoming a prerequisite for their survival. This study introduces a classification scheme which identifies firms by their degrees of involvement in service orientation. This typology was validated in a nationwide survey of retail nurseries. The findings supported the hypotheses that a strong service orientation does have a dramatic impact on a business's marketing decisions. It is hoped that recognition of these distinctions will offer strategic insights for small business practitioners in making marketing and promotion decisions.     

Power perceptions and modes of complaining in higher education

This study examines the relationship between student perceptions of different types of educator power and different modes of student complaining behaviour in the case of university education. A large sample of marketing students in the business school responded to the study from a state university in Northeastern United States. Factor analysis and canonical correlation analysis are used to explore the relationships between five bases of power perceptions (referent, expert, reward, legitimate, and punishment) and four modes of complaining behaviour (voice, negative word of mouth, third party, and exit). The results indicate that students engage in different modes of complaining as they perceive different types of educator power. The predominant complaining mode is found to be voice under referent or expert power, third party under legitimate power, and exit under reward or punishment power. Our findings offer important implications for student satisfaction, retention, and completion rates in higher education.     

Consumer response to marketing channels: A demand-based approach

Abstract

Marketing channels have faced rapid structural and functional transformations during the last few decades. While a large body of research has been devoted to understanding the supply-side aspects of marketing channels, much less research has taken the demand-side perspective to study consumer perception of channel position and functions. This article extends the channel literature to a broader domain and develops a consumer-based theoretical framework reflecting factors that influence consumer perception of and reaction to channel strategies and decisions. The authors conceptualize that consumers’ perceived channel value is a critical factor in determining their loyalty behavior. Seven important channel features are identified that would positively influence the perceived channel value. The relationship between perceived channel value and channel preference is strongly dependent on the level of customer value co-creation. The article concludes with research implications and suggestions of avenues for future research.     

浅析渠道关系

渠道关系是指渠道系统中各个成员之间的交往状态和合作深度。渠道系统内关系的类型和状态对渠道的产出效率和效果产生着重大的影响。本文探讨了目前广泛存在的四种纵向渠道关系及其优缺点 ,以求为企业的分销决策提供一些参考。     

The Effects of Search-Related and Purchase-Related Mobile App Additions on Retailers’ Shareholder Wealth: The Roles of Firm Size,Product Category,and Customer Segment

Mobile channel additions have been shown to increase consumer-brand relationships, brand satisfaction towards and overall purchasing from a retailer, but what is less apparent is whether shareholders are fully rewarded for retailers’ mobile channel additions. Results from an event study on 115 announcements relating to mobile app additions of publicly traded U.S. retail firms between 2009 and 2016 indicate that the stock market responds generally positively to mobile app additions, but specifically to the two mobile app addition types. Stock market responses to search-related and purchase-related app additions are moderated by firm size, product category, and target customer age. For announcements of search-related apps, the market responds more positively to product retailers than to service retailers, and to small firms than large ones. For announcements of purchase-related apps, the market responds less positively to firms that target younger customers than firms who do not especially target them.     

关系营销范式下客户份额增加行为研究

关系营销范式日益得到理论界和实业界的认可,同时客户回报计划也已成为一种重要的关系营销手段,然而却没有太多研究着眼于在回报计划实施情形下客户是如何加深与企业关系的。文章将通过建立一个从客户观点出发的过程模型来研究在竞争环境下客户做出增加其客户份额决策时是如何将客户转移成本、服务体验及客户对回报计划的感知价值等因素考虑进决策过程的。结果显示客户份额增加是以客户转移成本为基础,并受到客户所经历的服务体验的调整,且在竞争环境下这种调整相对复杂,同时验证了回报计划对客户份额的增加有积极作用,是企业建立长期客户关系的有效手段。最后讨论了研究结论对企业营销实践的启示。     

The Influence of Customer Relationship Marketing Strategies on Supply Chain Relationships: The Moderating Effects of Environmental Uncertainty and Competitive Rivalry

Purpose: A firm's customer relationship marketing strategy also may affect its attitudinal loyalty toward its main supplier. Furthermore, environmental uncertainty and competitive rivalry could moderate this relationship. This research investigates both questions.

Methodology/Approach: The empirical study involves a structured survey of 141 industrial firms. A structural equation technique with EQS 6.1 estimated the causal model. Multi-sample analysis revealed whether environmental uncertainty and/or competitive rivalry act as moderators.

Findings: The influence of customer relationship marketing on attitudinal loyalty toward the main supplier is positive but indirect, working through effective communication, satisfaction, and trust. However, when environmental uncertainty is high, the negative direct effect becomes significantly more intense, and when competitive rivalry is high, the positive indirect effect through satisfaction and trust is less intense.

Originality/Value: This study explores potential new paths in the relationship marketing field. Most scholars focus on the influence of a firm's relationship marketing strategy on customers' loyalty, but no previous works consider its potential influence on the firm's relationship with other partners in the supply chain, notably its strategic suppliers.

Research Implications: Structured academic research on this topic is lacking, even though many firms have implemented customer relationship programs. Supply-side researchers must evaluate the effects of such programs. Furthermore, this study combines different theoretical approaches.

Practical Implications: Practitioners can use the findings to segment their customer base and develop specific programs adapted to each target.     

Promoting Awareness of Government Export Assistance Programs in the International Marketing Course

ABSTRACT

One of the features of international marketing which distinguishes it from purely domestic marketing is the role of government-sponsored programs in helping firms start and indeed succeed in overseas markets. There is evidence that American firms make much less use of these programs than their foreign competitors. One possible contributing factor to this situation is limited classroom coverage which American instructors of international marketing devote to this area.

Two hundred and six U.S.-based members of the Academy of International Business (A.I.B.) were surveyed. Results indicated that while instructors of international marketing feel that government export assistance programs are important for export sucess, they are not very familiar with most of these programs and do not have positive perceptives about the quality of services currently offered. Little class time is devoted to most of the programs and lecture remains the dominant pedagogical tool. The connection between instructor familiarity with these programs and perceived importance and quality is also addressed.     

How Powerful CFOs Camouflage and Exploit Equity-Based Incentive Compensation

While numerous studies have examined the impact that powerful CEOs have on their compensation and overall firm decisions, relatively little is known about how powerful CFOs influence their compensation and important firm financial reporting and operational outcomes. This is somewhat surprising given the critical role CFOs play in the financial reporting process of a firm. Using managerial power theory (Bebchuk and Fried in J Econ Perspect 17:71–92, 2003) and the theory of power and self-focus (Pitesa and Thau in Acad Manag J 56(3):635–658, 2013), we predict that powerful CFOs employ a two-part strategy to camouflage excessive incentive compensation above what efficient contracting would dictate. First, powerful CFOs use their power and influence to negotiate shorter incentive pay duration to maximize the present value of their performance—based compensation. Second, when their incentive equity compensation vests, we suggest that CFOs manage earnings to further enhance their personal income. Consistent with our theoretical expectations, we find higher levels of income-increasing accrual-based earnings management and real transactions management, a potentially unethical practice, in firms with powerful CFOs who have short pay durations. We discuss the implications of our analysis in the context of mitigating CFO power and managing the ethical environment “tone at the top.”     

Marketing channel evolution: From contactual efficiency to brand value co-creation and appropriation within the platform enterprise

Abstract

In recent years, major technological advances have been a primary force driving channel evolution. In particular, the Internet of things has provided a means for some firms to experience the rise of one of the most innovative and cutting-edge channels—the platform enterprise (i.e., firms such as Amazon, Etsy, and Airbnb). We examine the platform enterprise through a marketing channel evolution lens. In doing so, we point to key factors that enable particular kinds of firms to forge unique marketing channels. As platform enterprises, these channels offer value that transcends contactual efficiency, because they utilize their resources and capabilities not only to connect buyers and sellers efficiently but also to create a community of stakeholders whose collective efforts are focused on two linked priorities—brand value co-creation and brand value appropriation.